The Dog Days Season

This has not been an easy August.

That would be an example of what we'd call a conclusion based on a small sample size. It is now August 2, and the Red Sox are thrust back into a tie for first place with the hated and eternally present New York Yankees, by virtue of their losing every game in August thus far. The most recent example is last night's 6-3 loss to the Indians, combined with the Yankees win over Toronto.

This first-place tie, and the Sox failure to win a single game in August so far, is obviously the result of the failure of the Red Sox front office to make a splashy move at the trading deadline on Monday. If you look at the FoxSports.com recap of the trading deadline moves (not that I'd encourage you to do so), you'll find their baseball guy doing the obligatory "deadline winners and losers" column. It's a really easy one to do. You just look at whoever made the most noise and call them winners, and look at whoever either gave up the farm for pennies on the dollar or whoever didn't do anything. These must be the losers. Guess where they placed the Yankees, and guess where they placed the Red Sox.

This is why I hate conventional wisdom. It's not critical. The Red Sox are losers because Theo was unable to complete any of the big trades he'd been discussing all day? Let's look at the most extreme trade that was discussed on Monday and think about it for a second. Wait- first, let me say that after Trot's injury I must confess I was sort of excited about the trading deadline. Even though I believed we should stand pat, it's fun to think about big names, and the who-would-you-give-up-for-who talk. I sat there between 3:45 and 4:15 hitting "refresh" on the Herald's Clubhouse Insider wire.

Ok- back to the rumored trade. Theo was, rightly so, trying to look into getting real impact pitching. The most exensive discussions centered around getting Roy Oswalt from the Astros. That would have been an impact move- I think we can agree on that. The way it might have gotten done, from the rumors, was via Atlanta. The Red Sox would have sent Jon Lester, Manny Delcarmen, and Coco Crisp to the Braves, who would then have given up Andruw Jones. He's an impact player as well. The Sox then would have flipped Jones to Houston for Oswalt. This means we trade Lester, Delcarmen, and Crisp for Oswalt. It's an impact move for right now, but would you do that trade? If you were Houston, of course you do that trade. You get three players under 26 who have shown great potential at the major league level. If you're the Sox, well, you get Roy Oswalt, who adds about as good a #3 starter as you could imagine. But Theo and the boys thought it wasn't worth it. Call me a blind loyalist of Theo, but I don't think it is worth it either.

So does this make the Red Sox losers? It may have some effect on a win or two this season- that's probably right. But the Sox are still very much in it, and are now still very much in it for the next five years as well. The Yankees- the deadline "winners," sold off another large chunk of the top of their farm system. They did so by again swallowing more contracts than Mike Lowell swallows ground balls. And who did they get for what they really needed? They got Corey Lidle. Let's pretend for a second that the Sox got Corey Lidle for their rotation. Could a strictly average pitcher, going from the NL to the AL and facing a good-hitting team like the Cleveland Indians, have done much better than Jason Johnson's six-inning, three-run effort last night? That's the modern definition of a "quality start." It's not great, but it's solid, and it's more than serviceable. Lidle isn't going to give you much more than that- and I hope that he doesn't give the Yankees more than that. It would mess with my theories.

The problem with last night (other than Hanson coughing up another couple of runs) is that the Sox ran into a buzzsaw of a lefty by the name of C.C. Sabathia. He's just a good young pitcher, a good young, hard-throwing lefty, and the Sox have problems with that. I suppose Roy Oswalt in the rotation would have been able to help us muster more than a run against that, though.

All of this talk is, of course, just my continuing efforts to not panic. It's hard not to with the Yankees apparently surging and our two dirt dogs (Trot and Tek) with minor injuries that strain the lineup. It's just that I get bugged when your conventional wisdom guys start pointing to utter crap like the trades the Yankees made and the Sox didn't as the reason. That sort of wisdom is the same that would turn around and tell you that the Sox are going to respond positively to the lack of trades, because it'll show Theo's trust in them and they'll come together more as a team. That sort of wisdom reminds me of William Goldman's take on the secrets of success in Hollywood. To paraphrase: "Nobody knows anything."